


graceless night

by Anonymous



Category: Girls of Paper and Fire Series - Natasha Ngan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Banter, Drama, F/M, Fix-It, Pre-Relationship, Romance, blue is a bitch but she's also best girl i don't make the rules, flirting with your love interest while the world literally goes down in flames, kenzo lives because i love him and i say he does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 01:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30014091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: After the deaths of Naja and the Demon King, Kenzo has to find a way out of the palace before it burns to the ground. Along the way, he runs into someone he never thought he'd take an interest in.
Relationships: Blue/Kenzo (Girls of Paper and Fire)
Kudos: 2
Collections: Anonymous





	graceless night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stump (you know who you are)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=stump+%28you+know+who+you+are%29).



Kenzo rises to his feet and stumbles away from Naja’s prone form. Her neck is snapped, twisted at an unnatural angle, white fur stained a crimson so dark it’s black. The sour tang of iron fills his mouth, and he swallows in a vain attempt to rid himself of the taste. Naja is dead. The Demon King is dead; his body is slumped a few yards away. The bulky form is slack, the brute strength and cruelty having drained out of it. All that remains is a husk. A wilted remainder of the monster he once was.

The Demon King is dead, and the imperial court is on fire.

The bamboo spear, crusted with rapidly-drying blood, slips from Kenzo’s limp grasp. He lets it fall, landing in the grass without a sound. Not that anything can be heard over the sound of his tortured breathing anyway.

Naja did a number on him; scratch and bite marks litter his body, and her claws gouged out a particularly grievous gash on his left side. Some of the fur around the wound has been torn out. Kenzo presses a hand to it, winces, and watches it come away red.

He should pick up the spear and get out of here. It’s more than likely he’ll encounter enemy soldiers on the way out.

Instead, Kenzo hunches his shoulders and staggers back to the castle without so much as a glance toward his fallen weapon. He can manage without it, he tells himself, even as blood leaks from the slashes in his side and congeals in his fur.

But maybe it’s because some part of him doesn’t want to make it out.

He’s served his purpose; Wren and Lei are long gone, and the assassination was a success. Maybe it’s time for him to sit and rest for a while. A long while.

The thought of lying in the damp grass and letting himself slip into nothingness sounds far too tempting. Kenzo grits his teeth and soldiers onward. He’s a warrior, and if he must go down, it will be in battle.

As he nears the palace, the cacophony of battle thunders against his ears. Cries of fear and anger and pain, the clang of metal against metal, and the smell of smoke. Kenzo flattens himself against a cool stone wall and studies the scene. The fire hasn’t spread beyond the grand hall yet, but that's only a matter of time. The main courtyard is filled with a mass of indistinguishable bodies, clamoring to flee or to fight. Half of them, or more, will be scorched alive before they find a way out, and many more will fall victim to the cloying smoke. Entering the fray would be suicide.

Luckily, the time Kenzo spent working as the king’s advisor hasn’t gone to waste. Though he’s never let himself think of the imperial palace as his home, he knows its layout as well as if it was. Sticking close to the shadowed walls, he dashes into a little-used side corridor and weaves through the dark passages it opens into.

The walls are claustrophobic and pitch black, as if to cage him in. Him, a Steel caste, a wolf, a born predator, trapped like common prey. His upper lip curls in dark amusement, exposing a hint of bone-white fang. How the mighty fall.

Still, Kenzo keeps a hand on the brick beside him, tracing over the rough surface. If he’s judged correctly, he has a few feet to go before he reaches—

Ah. Stone gives way to wood, and Kenzo fumbles for any sort of handle. His fingers close around a round knob, which he twists open to reveal a quiet garden. The grass is tall here, and the night wind whistles through it.

No one would bother coming to the Paper House at a time like this, especially not when all the Paper girls are supposed to be at the ceremony.

In the distance, a piercing shriek fills the air, and Kenzo’s hackles raise. He wonders who it is who was just slaughtered—friend or foe?

If he can navigate through the garden and stick to unused side streets and tunnels, maybe he’ll make it out of this godforsaken city alive.

As he wades through the grass, though, his sensitive ears become aware of a new set of sounds. A soft hitch of breath, the rustle of silk: someone else is here. They don’t sound dangerous, but Kenzo drops into a combat stance anyway. “Who’s there?” he asks, low in his throat. Almost a growl. “Show yourself.”

He hears a small, muffled whimper, and then silence.

After a few heartstopping seconds, a trembling figure emerges from under a nearby bush. Her fingers are twisted in the fabric of a dirtied _cheongsam,_ and the tear tracks on her face glitter under the moonlight.

Kenzo relaxes, just slightly. It’s one of the Paper girls, and from the looks of her torn dress and bare feet, she must have run here before the chaos broke out in earnest. What’s her name again? She steps forward, and the light catches on her hair, rippling indigo. Ah, right—Blue.

Blue tosses her head, spine straightening despite the obvious fear in her eyes. “Get on with it, then,” she says.

“With what?” Kenzo asks. He, too, stands straight. This human girl poses no threat to him, even in his weakened state.

“ _‘With what,’”_ Blue mocks, sneering. “You’re going to kill me? I won’t give you the satisfaction of having me beg for my life.”

Kenzo recoils. He doesn’t know what to say, so the two of them end up locked in a strange sort of stalemate. Blue glares at him, challenging him to move, and he can only stare back. Her face is round and pale, like the moon, and her high cheekbones are littered with thin red lines. Scrapes, he thinks, from the brush she was hiding under. They do nothing to detract from the brightness of her eyes, the hard clench of her jaw.

Something snaps in Blue’s expression, and the sleeve of her _cheongsam_ blurs as she swings at his face. Kenzo catches her fist before it can make contact. His hand is big enough to completely encircle her wrist, and he lowers it gently.

Her hand feels so delicate in his palm. The bone is so fragile, like that of a bird’s; it would break so easily under his touch.

“You goddamn useless half-breeds,” Blue hisses, wrenching her hand away. “What are you—why aren’t you—I’m right _here_. I’m defenseless. Or are you too much of a _coward_ to face one little Paper girl?’

Kenzo studies her face, contorted in a snarl. He may be the half-demon here, but she looks more savage than he does. Yet underneath her intense scowl lies a frightening vulnerability. How many girls like this has he brought to the Demon King’s chambers? How many more has he taken away, shaking and bruised? All the sleepless nights he’s spent, pacing in front of his bed as guilt washes over him, wishing there was a way to fulfill his mission without having to sacrifice so much.

The Demon King is dead.

He’s dead, and Blue is here, and the smell of ashes hangs in the air.

“Are you okay to walk?” Kenzo asks.

Blue blinks, fury melting into surprise. “What?”

“Your feet.” Kenzo nods at them. “You’ve run this far already. You wouldn’t have stopped unless you were in too much pain to continue.”

Blue tucks her feet under the hem of her skirt, evidently annoyed at having a weakness pointed out. “They’re fine,” she snaps. “I stopped because I realized there’s nowhere for me to go. My family is all back there—” she jerks her chin at the burning halls behind them “—and no one on the outside is going to take in someone like me when war is brewing.”

“Then come with me,” Kenzo says. The sky is getting brighter, though it’s nowhere near dawn. The fire is approaching. They’ll be consumed if they stay much longer.

“I—” Blue hesitates. “Where are _you_ going?”

Kenzo shrugs, then hisses when the motion sparks a flare of bright agony. “No idea,” he says. He would laugh if everything hurt less.

“You’re a demon,” Blue says, but it lacks the venom Kenzo was expecting. That’s good. Confusion is better than vitriol.

“I’m your best bet,” he says. He holds out a hand, face-up. “Come on. I hear burning to death is a bad way to go out.”

That gets through to her; one corner of Blue’s lips tilts into a small, sardonic smile. “You’re probably right,” she says. “And you know, I don’t think I look all that good in yellow. Or orange.”

She takes his hand, and this time Kenzo _does_ laugh, even if it makes his ribs ache. “I think you might be wrong there,” he says.

Behind them, something explodes.

Blue cringes. “Talk later?” she asks, meeting his eyes. This time, the only thing in them is determination.

Kenzo offers her a sharp grin. “Talk later.”

They break into a run as the palace goes down in flames.

This, Kenzo thinks, this moon-skinned girl who is so paradoxically breakable, could be something interesting. This could be something to rediscover purpose in. They could make it out together.

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this half as a joke but i think blue and kenzo deserve better and i'm proud to be the founder of their ship.


End file.
